Victory
by adele4
Summary: Two snippets in which Malik wins, in a sense, and still doesn't get what he wanted. 1: Yami Malik wins BC and finds that it is not wise to toy with someone who was once angry enough to create him. 2: Rishid never played the fake Ra card.
1. one

_Disclaimer: I don't own Yu-Gi-Oh, I don't own the characters, I just borrow them for fun, not profit._

_Note: There will be two__ unrelated one-shots in this, until I eventually write more that fit the theme (the second one is probably a lot lighter)._

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**Victory – one**

He was still resisting.

After all he had done to him, after all he had tried...

... still resisting. Still refusing to break.

Large violet-colored eyes were looking up to him with pure defiance. One of them slightly red, bruised and never going to heal; not totally blind yet, by chance at first, because he had hit it that way, and then because he thought that this alternated vision – trying to see, on the edge of succeeding, yet always failing – that now was his other's, was even worse than blindness. He could always correct it.

And he could feel, through the link they shared, all the pain only from that single wound.

And yet within the bruised eye, a fierce look of promise of revenge, and the savage hope to fulfill it.

He had granted him with this body only to torture it, kept the "light" part of himself alive, in reach, in chains. Destroying it, now that he had won, now that he had everything, wasn't enough. He wanted to break it completely. Slowly. Painfully.

How he had regretted the too fast death of the pharaoh and his light, the impossibility, even with the so total power he had gained, to bring them back... He took revenge on the others, one after the other, slowly, enjoying their fear and their pain. Mokuba suffered most, probably: with the pharaoh gone, Kaiba was the most entertaining of them.

Ah, and Isis... their dear sister...

He kept her for the end. Made his light watch, loving his fading yells and his angry tears, his powerless rage. As he later enjoyed his screams of agony, the taste of his blood, the fear in his eyes...

Of course he had begged. Of course, he had thrown himself to his feet, had pleaded for mercy, had vowed submission, called for dead; of course, he'd promised everything, renounced to everything, said anything.

But he was lying.

Inside, always, he was full of burning rage, anger and hatred.

It should be enough. He should enjoy this as well, should be glad it took his light so long to break – didn't it mean he could continue to make him suffer for so long, didn't it mean that the victory would be even sweeter if the hope had still been there for so long?

His light glared at him with a coldness he, the light, should not posses. A glimpse of a thought, a silent order would be enough to make him drop this proud gaze, to make him disown it.

And it would make the hate even stronger.

He had followed the line of Malik's not even always conscientious thoughts, through the pain and helplessness, over regret and sorrow, rage and desire to rebuilt and destroy, and not in this order, down to the very beginning of the fissure in his mind that should already be reduced to nothing but fear. There, there was a single word, a name, mentally spoken in furious hope and a sort of mockery that angered and – he had to admit it – scared the dark more than anything.

_Rishido_.

Rishido, just as the pharaoh, had died too fast. And Malik _knew_, and all his power over the light's mind could not erase the memory, even though – or because – it was buried deep in the light's mind. He had not killed Rishido as one more obstacle, not killed him because he simply enjoyed killing. He had killed him because Rishido was a mortal danger to him, someone whose mere existence was enough to destroy him, a Damocles sword he had to remove from above his head. And Malik knew, deeply aware of his past vulnerability and fear, the fragility of his power, and his eternal revolt started there.

And because he was not one to admit defeat, and because he could not repeat that mistake, because this thin note of contempt in Malik's thoughts would haunt him even when he was gone, he had refused to destroy the light completely, to release him of pain before he had broken him.

And even while he knew he was digging his own grave, he could not go back.

And he knew he should have been more careful, should have remembered that he was born of this same rage Malik was now directing against him; knew that when he had been ordered to vow his life to another, had been locked in and tortured, it had made him reach out for power and control, had only given him more strength, had brought him to create _him_.

_He_ should feed on this anger, on this pure darkness inside the light, should be draining him.

Instead, he felt his own strength betray him, felt himself fade, and he understood too late that he was nothing but a small part of Malik, that the light – consumed by darkness a second time, but he would not feed on this darkness – was recreating him, turning into him, and about to destroy them both.

And because he was only rage and hate himself, he could not stop the process, could not try and save Malik's light, could not protect himself from the slowly building darkness: he could only increase it while he knew what he was doing, prisoner of what he was, could only watch himself fall, only human enough to be destroyed, while hatred resumed dominion in Malik's eyes, while it became dark and irrational after he had pushed away sorrow and sadness about the deaths he'd caused.

And even when Malik's eyes turned into a mirror, when a wicked, mad smile appeared on the edge of his lips, when he could feel his content over the darkness he had brought upon the world, he could not wish for the other to disappear, could not even hope for an even so thin ray of light to balance the darkness which was consuming him. Even when he knew that Malik would use this small amount of freedom he still possessed – the freedom the give up to this if he wished – to take his place, he could not make a single move; could only watch himself and his light melt into shadows.

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_Reviews are nice. _


	2. two

_Disc__laimer__: I don't own Yuugiou._

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**Victory ****–**** two**

"Malik, don't."

His sister's voice, still calm, despite the panic he was certain must be assaulting her, and both commanding and pleading, seemed to come from very far away. He didn't pay it any mind. Instead, he looked down upon the three cards in his hand, then back up to the stone slab. He gently let his fingers glide over the gold of the puzzle, feeling, when he concentrated, where exactly one piece met another one. He should break it into thousand pieces, and more, smash it and melt it down.

But that had to wait; and maybe, it wouldn't be necessary. He breathed in and out softly, smiled, then frowned at the picture of the pharaoh before him, facing the one who looked like Seto Kaiba. He would destroy this image, too.

He would destroy this tomb.

He turned the three god cards around in his hand, ready to hold them up towards the stone slab, when Isis called again.

"_Don't_ do this."

He growled and turned round; she was standing, a few feet behind him, not making a movement to stop him, but still staring at him, a sad expression in her eyes, as if she regretted that he had finally succeeded, that he had freed them all from their cursed fate, that he was about to achieve his goal and become the pharaoh!

"Shut up," he snarled.

He didn't add anything, as tempting as it was. They'd had their argument two days ago, when he had left for Egypt, and agreed to let her come with him. She had tried to stop him then, too; she closed her eyes, briefly, didn't add anything either. She could remember as well...

"_Step aside," Malik snapped, and for an instant, there was something different in his voice, in his face, when he raised the millennium rod. "I swear, if you try to stop me, I will use this on you."_

"_Master Malik." Rishid had laid a hand on his shoulder from behind, and the foreign expression disappeared from his face._

_And for a moment, Rishid locked eyes with her; she was about to speak, when Malik turned round towards him, and said: "when I reclaim the pharaoh's memory, we will have succeeded. We will have completed out duty as the guardians." He insisted on "we". Rishid bowed his head._

"_It is too late," Malik added, to her. "You had your chance. You could have beaten Kaiba, you could not have made him start this tournament. Now, let me finish this like I wish to."_

_And she had lowered her head as well, feeling helpless as never since the day on which the ritual had been performed on him._

She didn't say anything. Rishid came to stand beside her. Malik turned back round with a triumphant smirk, and held the cards out towards the tablet.

The light stream was blinding, and when Isis and Rishid could open their eyes again, Malik had collapsed onto the ground.

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His plan had worked well. He'd been careful to arrange himself three chances; the thief had lost against the pharaoh, but after all, this had had to be expected, and in the end, he liked it better that way. He would gladly have taken the puzzle anyway, but that didn't mean he didn't prefer getting the pharaoh for himself.

Rishid had smitten the blond he had possessed without too much trouble; the danger of that duel had come from a different source, Jounouchi's annoying assurance that the loyal, honest Rishid could not be the one who had possessed him.

Deciding his cover was about to be blown anyway, he had used the full power of his deck against Mai, who, despite Yugi and the others' warnings, was completely unprepared for it. After that, he'd only barely escaped being mauled by Jounouchi, and Kaiba's staff had not lifted a finger to hold him back.

Once the way the half-finals would be chosen had been explained, his plan had been to have Rishid fight off Kaiba and then give him Obelisk, before _he_ would finally destroy the pharaoh and get the third card. Then, he and Rishid would let them deal with having no finalists for the tournament, and be off to Egypt.

But Kaiba, Ammut have his soul, had actually managed to throw both him and Rishid out of the four-way duel, forcing him to face his servant next, who had of course forfeited to him, but the harm was done, and as much as he disliked the pharaoh, he hadn't been able to help gloating at the priest's following defeat. The last duel had been the toughest one.

But he had won. He had won, and now the pharaoh's power was his.

He raised the cards in front of himself, and when he saw the stream of light, he expected to be filled with a rush of magical power that would permit him to – to do anything, to rule over the world forever!...

Instead, dark energy surrounded him, and before he could make a movement, he was sucked into a black vortex.

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_AN: I once thought about writing about Malik in the memory world, but I could never come up with a satisfying plot for it. I hope I'm not contradiction an important canon fact with this (safe for the fact that's it's probably unlikely Malik would beat either Mai or Yami and Yugi in a duel).  
Haven't written any more fics on this theme, so this is probably the end of this short "series". Reviews are always nice!_


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